Raising Kids Who Love The Outdoors

Volumes of research assert that kids have less unstructured playtime than their parents did and spend less of that playtime outdoors.

- Malia Jacobson

In a study published in the journal Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, more than 70 percent of mothers report that they played outdoors every day as a child, but just 30 percent say their children do the same. Researchers believe this shortage of outdoor play is hurting kids because children who spend more time outside in nature reap academic, social, emotional and physical gains. Ready to begin encouraging an enduring love of nature? Here’s how to get your child off the couch and into the great outdoors, from toddlerhood into the teen years.

Early Years

Explore Outdoors 

Activities like squishing mud through their fingers, watching bugs march across a sidewalk and splashing in puddles deliver hands-on learning that ignites the five senses. Create an outdoor space that encourages creative, brain-building play for toddlers using basic, inexpensive materials, says Mary Kingsley, director and lead teacher at The Kinder Garden Preschool in Raleigh, a nature-based school where most of kids’ time is spent outside.